


Sideways

by Jaydeun



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Comforting Aziraphale (Good Omens), Cuddles, Drunk Aziraphale (Good Omens), Drunk Crowley (Good Omens), Eggnog, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Idiots in Love, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-12
Updated: 2019-11-12
Packaged: 2021-01-29 16:09:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21412942
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydeun/pseuds/Jaydeun
Summary: It's cold and there's eggnog, and Crowley decides to try A THING. Miracles while drinking, however, tend to go sideways...
Relationships: Aziraphale & Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 146





	Sideways

Snow had just begun falling in Soho. Not the big fluffy flakes that graced housetops in Tadfield (under the watchful eye of a now-twelve-year-old Adam), but rather the more London-proper silt gray sort landed with icy _plips_ against the bookshop window. It was no kind of night to be out in the cold and damp. It was _absolutely_ the kind of night to sit cozy with your best…whatever they were…next to a roaring fire and with a rather irresponsible amount of alcohol. A great proportion of which had made it into an eggnog, the recipe for which Aziraphale had been perfecting since 1803.

“Issst not even December, angel,” Crowley said, swinging his cup about for emphasis and spattering the rug with the very best marriage of cream and nutmeg to be had in town.

“I fail to see why,” Aziraphale said.

“Why it’s not December?” Crowley asked but was _Shhhd_ for his trouble.

“I’m _trying _to _concentrate,_ dear, “ Aziraphale said, and he did certainly look it. A pink tip of tongue peeked just out the corner of his mouth as he screwed one eye shut. He then made a valiant attempt at ladling additional eggnog into his cup. And failed. “Bugger—why aren’t you bigger?” he demanded of the vessel.

Crowley didn’t object to criticizing inanimate objects, of course. But neither did he like to see Aziraphale thwarted in something as important as drink. (Especially one as sticky sweet as this one. In fact, Crowley had been wondering all evening if eggnog actually counted as food instead of drink—like the liquid version of Trifle). He managed to wiggle up from his near-prone position on the armchair and reached out a long-fingered hand.

“Lemme do that, angel,” he said winking. At least he thought it was a wink, though to be honest he had trouble working out which eyelid was doing what at the moment—they hadn’t come standard with his model.

“Of course.” Aziraphale handed over the ladle and attempted to clear away the spill. Miracles could come out a little sideways on a bumper of nog, however, and he managed only to turn it into toffee brittle. Which, considering, wasn’t such a bad mistake. He broke off a piece for tasting and watched as Crowley perfectly filled the etched glass. He handed it over, then clinked his own against it.

“Cheers, angel,” he said, his words warm and heavy and the rest of him looking every bit as drunk as Aziraphale felt.

“Oh, Crowley, however do you _do _it? I can’t seem to—oh, try the toffee brittle, it came out with just a _hint_ of nutmeg—“ He waved a piece about for emphasis. “What was I saying?”

Crowley gave him a look warm and nearly liquid. A look that would have made Aziraphale blush something terrible not too long ago. Might still, if he were sober.

“Angel, I have no idea.” He broke off a piece of brittle and—forsaking his armchair—settled in next to Aziraphale on the sofa. He’d kicked his shoes off earlier, and now stretched his feet toward the warm glow. Aziraphale wasn’t so far gone that he didn’t notice the comfortable pressure of Crowley’s shoulder blade where it pressed to Aziraphale’s side. _Well, that isn’t helping me remember_, Aziraphale thought. But he certainly didn’t object. Watching Crowley unfold himself, somehow graceful despite what had to be entirely the wrong number of bones—

“Oh _that’s _it. Grace!”

“Where?” Crowley lifted his head as though he expected some sort of heavenly intrusion, but Aziraphale just patted him affectionately.

“No, no—you. Are.” He gave a little giggle into his eggnog. “Graceful, I mean. Not a drop on the table.”

“Ah, well.” Crowley ducked his head ever so slightly, a sort of silent protest against the compliment. “It’ss eyes, thatss all.”

Aziraphale nodded fondly. _Yes. Eyes._ _Wait, eyes?_ He waited a few moments for the thought to wander through the fuzz between his ears and arrive at meaning. It simply would not do it. But Crowley had not finished, apparently, and in fact was still talking.

“…it easier that way.”

“Oh... dear, I didn’t catch any of that,” Aziraphale admitted. Crowley twisted himself double helix to look him in the eye.

“These,” he said, pointing to the golden orbs of his iris and their vertical pupils. “Snakes. Got this thing with eyes. Told you, didn’t I? Lens thingies.”

The utter confusion on Aziraphale’s face, dressed up as it was with an eggnog blush and shining blue eyes, was more than a besotted demon could bear. Crowley finished the twist of his lower half so he was sitting more or less human-like, and face to face with his angel.

“Ssso—snakes. You, ah, your eyes—” He was looking into those eyes just then, almost cobalt in the dim firelight, with pupils dilated with alcohol and…maybe… “Ahem. _Your_ eyes, I was saying. You focus with curves.”

Aziraphale’s lids fluttered and his gaze briefly took in his rather round middle.

“My…curves?”

“Hrkle.” Crowley swallowed. Twice. Licked lips involuntarily. Swallowed again. “In your eyes,” he managed at last, voice slightly higher than necessary.

“Oh! Oh _yes_, the little lens inside you mean?” Aziraphale asked. (He had a whole book of ancient optometry somewhere about…) Crowley smiled indulgently.

“Yeah, so it... flexes like. Mine don’t. They move back and forth—y’know? This way?” Crowley curled his fingers into imaginary goggles and pulled them far and near over his eyes. It would look absolutely ridiculous to any sober person, but as none were present, it mostly had the effect of causing Aziraphale to squeak happily.

“And—that helps pour drinks?” he asked.

“Well. Eh. Yeah?” Crowley’s hands didn’t seem to know quite where to go. He tucked them behind his head. “Yeah. Yeah—course! ‘Cause it’s just mechanics, right? I mean, drunk snake, sober snake. Distance is distance.”

He looked very pleased with himself suddenly. But Aziraphale’s face puckered into a quizzical look.

“I don’t see how—I mean, you wouldn’t be able to test it anyway, would you?” he asked.

“Eh?” Crowley had just prepared to stretch himself out again (and was aiming to end up with at least part of himself in Aziraphale’s lap).

“Your eyes—and they are _lovely_, you know. To me.” Aziraphale blushed before going on. “But they have always been that way. How would you know different? You might just be graceful, my dear. And I—” He broke off another piece of the brittle sticking to his coffee table and popped it into his mouth. Which did make it harder to talk. “Imightjstbeclumsy.”

“You’re _not_,” Crowley insisted, wagging a finger (it kept on wagging, too, of its own volition). “You’re fucking _perfect_, I won’t hear otherwise. And—and whadya mean I don’t know different? I can change ‘em if I wanna.”

Aziraphale coughed on toffee. Because _this _was news.

“You’ve never _once_, Crowley!”

“So? Maybe I jussst like ‘em this way.” Crowley looked on the edge of a pout, and Aziraphale scooched just a wee bit closer to pet his shoulder.

“Of course. You shouldn’t ever have to—”

“Even if I _can_.”

“Even.” Aziraphale nodded enthusiastically. Crowley nodded enthusiastically. Until they were both nodding like blue-footed boobies in a courtship dance.

“So we’re agreed,” Crowley said finally. “I’ll change ‘em.”

“Wait, what?” Aziraphale began, but suddenly the air rushed out, then rushed back in, with a faint electric _pop_.

***

Now, it should be said that what Crowley _meant _to do was to glamour himself a temporary pair of human-looking eyes. Honey brown, probably, with just a little hint of gold to them, and regular (boring) round pupils for looking through. He did not actually think they would work like human eyes. Which more or less guaranteed that they _wouldn’t_, but he could then pretend to slop eggnog and Aziraphale would feel better about himself, and they could perhaps more on to discussing a whole other set of ‘curves’ which would be ever so warm and snug on a night like this. What Crowley actually managed to do, however, was nothing of the sort.

***

“Oh.” Crowley said and it was not a dismissive ‘oh.’ More like the ‘oh’ that comes out instead of _oh fuck oh shit oh fuck_. He pushed himself to his knees on the sofa and reeled backward slightly, as if that would make the room stop expanding right and left.

Actually, it was worse that that. The room went right and left but not up and down. The ceiling had vanished and so had the floor, leaving a long but narrow stripe that took in the far door and the kitchen at once. Crowley’s rum-addled brain decided that standing up would help. He angled his head sideways, trying for a tilt on the room, and groped about with one foot looking for the floor. He found the coffee table instead, tangling an ankle around the leg and managing to send the still half-full eggnog bowl into Aziraphale’s knees.

“Crowley!” Aziraphale cried, jumping up onto the cushions and narrowly avoiding the flood of cream and sugar. Crowley tried to look directly at him but only got the top of his head (and six book shelves, a grandfather clock, and a lamp in the corner he didn’t even know was there). He was not panicking about this. He was _PANICKING _about this.

“Help! Help!” he yipped, wind milling both arms as though only that would keep him vertical.

“Whatever have you done, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, squashing pillows to couch walk in his direction. Crowley had just squeezed both eyes shut, however.

“Nnnyaaadon’tknow! It’s dark!”

“Your eyes are shut!”

“No, I mean—it’s dark in the wrong places!” Crowley pressed his palms to his eyes, but that meant he’d quit wind-milling, and for reasons having more to do with eggnog than pupil size, he fell straight backward onto the rug. “It’s got black bands at the top and the bottom! It’s the cinematic cut! Help!”

By now, Aziraphale was kneeling next to him and had taken one of Crowley’s hands in his own. (Crowley’s other hand having been thrown across his forehead in a picture of dramatic despair).

“Please, dear, you must open them and let me see what the matter is!” he insisted. “Can you do that for me?”

Crowley sniffed and nodded. Then cautiously, he opened his eyes. What _he _saw was a stripe of Aziraphale’s face across his field of vision. What Aziraphale saw were two golden eyes with their pupil’s gone entirely sideways.

“Oh... my. You are a goat, dear.”

Crowley stared.

“I have _horns?_” he demanded, suddenly feeling around the back of his head. Aziraphale caught his fingers.

“Ah, no—no horns. You have seen a goat, haven’t you? They have those eyes—the ones that kind of…” Aziraphale tilted his head sideways, which had the benefit of putting more of it into Crowley’s visual field.

“Oh, no—no, no, no,no, no, don’t tell me--”

“Sideways, Crowley.”

“I hate it.” Crowley had just reached up to rub at his new pupils, but Aziraphale curled warm fingers into his palms.

“Tut, now! I’ll miracle them right as rain!” he said merrily. Crowley made a mewling sound in his throat.

“But--toffee brittle, angel!” he gasped before Aziraphale could quite snap his fingers. The angel’s eyebrows flew up like alarmed sparrows.

“Ah. Quite right, my dear boy—so sorry—” He settled himself a moment, willing the very _very _excessive quantities of rum and sugar out of his bloodstream. He blinked a few times, watching the world grow firm about the edges. (And, if he were honest, taking a good look at the demon on his floor, lying in spilled eggnog with a deeply sweet pout on his panic-pinked features.) A breath, another pop, and Crowley blinked snake eyes at him.

“Angel!” he said, warm and adoring and utterly relieved. “I’m—stuck to the carpet.”

Aziraphale, as the one now firmly in his wits, miracled away the remnants and the bowl and glasses too. And the toffee brittle. And the other four bags of sugar from his pantry because you _could _in fact have too much of a good thing. Then he helped Crowley up onto the sofa.

“That. Was not okay,” Crowley admitted, letting the alcohol shiver out of his system.

“Well,” Aziraphale tugged Crowley gently backward until his spine rested against Aziraphale’s chest. “We still have a lovely crackling fire. And it is still terribly cold outside.”

“Much too cold to go home, you mean?”

“To your cold little flat? I should think so. And the roads.”

“Must be terrible, I agree,” Crowley breathed deep, felt the round of Aziraphale’s soft middle against his lower back.

“How about something a bit safer? I’ve a whiskey here somewhere,” Aziraphale suggested. Crowley just tilted his head up to rub cat-like against the angel’s cheek.

“S’fine just like this,” he said—adding “for now” just in case there was a better option _later_. Azirphale rested a hand on Crowley’s head, gently sliding fingers through his hair.

“Crowley?”

“Mmm?”

“You make a terrible goat.” Then Aziraphale placed a soft, sweet kiss upon his brow. 


End file.
